There are four finalists for Kirk Cousins. Unless there aren’t.
Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News has posted this observation regarding the chase for the first healthy, sub-30, franchise quarterback to ever hit the open market: “I’m hearing that free agent Kirk Cousins has not ruled out any teams (despite the chatter). He’s keeping all options open. There’s still ample time to survey the landscape and find a new home. So, the Jets are still very much a viable destination.”
It’s a telling development on the back end of the Scouting Combine, suggesting that only the Jets are offering market value to Cousins, and that the gap between the Jets and contenders like the Vikings and Broncos is big enough to make Cousins serious about accepting the New York offer.
This meshes with the point made here on Monday regarding whether the three supposed finalists not named the Jets (Vikings, Broncos, Cardinals) are truly interested in Cousins at a financial level that he’d deem acceptable.
With eight days until free agency launches, now isn’t the time to throw the door open for more suitors. It’s the time to focus on a handful of finalists. Unless those finalists aren’t coming up with final offers that Cousins likes.
Is it a coincidence that the Cardinals deemed the price to be too high for Cousins but apparently ended up back in the mix? It could be that some of the interested teams are interested at numbers far lower than expected, leaving the Jets as the one contractual outlier. Leaving Cousins to either accept that offer or, before doing so, take one last shot at luring someone else to the table.